No, Yoenis Cespedes is not a .182 hitter

Yoenis Cespedes had a monster batting practice this morning and hit his second homer in the fifth inning, raising his average to .200. He entered the game at .182, and the average dropped to .176 after his first at-bat. Bob Melvin said, “Oh, I’m not too concerned about that.”

For good reason. The track record speaks for itself.

Cespedes got five at-bats in a minor-league game Monday, and he obviously regained some rhythm.

“He likes a lot of at-bats. With a long spring, I don’t want to run him out there too much, and it makes sense to go over and get some at-bats like yesterday,” Melvin said.

It’s a far cry from a year ago, when Cespedes arrive and put on a show in games right away. This year, it’s OK to pace himself.

“He wasn’t as understanding about a 162-game season as he is now,” Melvin said. “He was tired at the end of the year. He’ll admit that. He was banged up some. We used him at DH some to try to combat that. But I think he has a better understanding how to pace himself over the course of a 162-game season.”

So he can ease in to the season?

“He doesn’t ease into anything. It’s kind of who he is. So, therefore, it’s our job to get him to cut back some.”

Cespedes had wrist issues last year, and the coaches had him go easier in BP, suggesting a ball landing one row over the wall means as much as a ball 20 rows deep.

“We don’t want to get him into straight pull home run mode, either,” Melvin said. “We’re doing things in batting practice where certain rounds are line-drive rounds, certain rounds are situational rounds. So we’re trying to do things a little more functional in batting practice than maybe we were early on.”

Melvin smiled and added, “It’s the hitting home runs with donuts on his bat that we’re trying to stay away from. He’s actually done that a couple times.”